Networks Have Begun Fact-Checking Trump’s Lies In Real Time And It’s Ruining Trump’s Life

Donald Trump lies. He lies a lot. He lies about little things like whether a Purple Heart given to him was real or a copy. He lies about major things like Muslims in New Jersey celebrating the September 11th terror attacks on their rooftops. He lies about things that his campaign has already admitted were lies.

How do you fight against someone so devoid of shame? It’s safe to say that no media organization was ready to handle the sheer number of misinformation and flagrant falsehoods coming out of Trump’s campaign. All politicians lie sometimes. Nobody has ever gotten this far by lying all the time.

For context, Trump lies more than Michele Bachmann, and it’s never been entirely clear that Bachmann is even living with the rest of us in the real world.

Several months ago, CNN broke with tradition and came up with a novel approach to calling bullshit on Trump’s bullshit. As video played of the Republican candidate shamelessly lying, the network fact-checked it in real time.

It’s a subtle addition, but massively effective. Rather than waiting for viewers to hear what he’s saying and then tune out the debunking, audiences are confronted with Trump’s lies as they happen.

We here at If You Only News were so impressed, that we devoted an article to praising CNN’s strategy. (You can read that here.) Since then, CNN and other networks have gotten more bold. At this point, patience for Trump’s lies is clearly wearing thin.

We are entering a new era: Fact-checking Trump and calling out his lies is now becoming the norm.

No longer can critics argue that the mainstream media is being complicit in Trump’s campaign of misinformation. For all their faults, networks are adapting to this new level of propaganda and Trump’s free ride is coming to an end. With every lie, Trump gives networks the opportunity to further embarrass him.

Even better: Trump hates it. A television media addict, Trump spends a great deal of his day watching and yelling about how the networks are covering him. The fact that they are now humiliating him to millions of viewers each day is sure to drive him nuts. Already, Trump has cravenly announced boycotts to several programs which he feels are too harsh on him. How much longer before he eliminates every outlet (besides Fox) and discovers that he’s alone in his tower, shouting at an empty room?